Comparisons and similes

Abstract Two things are needed for a properly constructed and grounded theory of simile. The first is a general theory of comparison, and the second is a theory of how simile differs, if it does, from other kinds of comparison. This paper deals mainly with these two issues. It argues that there are six logically different kinds of comparison judgment: open comparisons, simple closed comparisons, and variable closed comparisons, each of which has both an affirmative and a negative form. There are, correspondingly, six logically different kinds of simile. The difference between a simile and an ordinary comparison, however, is that similes are predicative comparisons (in which the predicate describes the subject), and ordinary comparisons are symmetrical comparisons (in which the subject and the predicate are referentially independent). In the latter, but not in the former, the subject and the predicate can be intersubstituted without any consequential change of meaning. Some concluding remarks deal with simile in discourse and in literature, and demonstrate that simile is quite different from, and independent of, metaphor.